Quick Downscale Question

[BMACadelic]

Hello All,

I've been trying to wrap my head around this and can't quite come up with an answer. If I have 4K footage that I am scaling to 110% (for fake camera movement purposes) on a 4K Premiere Pro timeline and I then export that timeline to a 4K file and upload it to YouTube, I am obviously losing quality in that 4K file because of the 110% scale. When I upload that same file to YouTube and play that same 110% scaled 4K video file at 1440p resolution playback on YouTube (as a result of the YouTube transcode), will the 1440 version of that video file also have a loss of quality like the 4K file will (YouTube compression aside)? Basically I am trying to figure out whether or not working on a 4K timeline, scaling in, and then watching the same video on YouTube at 1440 playback will result in a loss of quality (because of that 110% scale) like the 4K file will. Hope this makes sense - thanks in advance for your help!

[Meg The Dog · Accepted solution]

BMACadelic  wrote

Basically I am trying to figure out whether or not working on a 4K timeline, scaling in, and then watching the same video on YouTube at 1440 playback will result in a loss of quality (because of that 110% scale) like the 4K file will.

The answer is yes, if the 1440p version is created from the 4K export -  any artifacts introduced by over-scaling the source files in the sequence will be present in the exported file (plus any additional artifacts created by the compression codec change and/or rescaling done in the export.

Whether or not that artifact is apparent to YouTube viewers would depend on the size of the display they are watching the video on - a small smartphone screen will display less apparent artifact than a large computer monitor.

MtD

[BMACadelic]

Wow! Thanks for the fast reply, MTD! That makes sense. I'm probably overthinking this - but if pixels are duplicated during an upscale, would they not be removed in a transcoded downscale? Thus removing any artifacting? Just trying to learn the "why" now. Thanks for the assistance!

[Ann Bens]

If the 4k is somewhat less important why not put the 4K in a 1920x1080 timeline.

Lots of room to scale.

[BMACadelic]

Not every shot needs to be panned/scaled and I would therefore like to preserve the 4K quality of the regular 4K shots.